Archive - The Joy Menu

Now Published—'Slow Business'

I published a poetry collection. Buy a copy today!

Oct 29, 2023 •

September 2023

86–Slow business, indeed.

Slow Business – as in the process of illness, of dying, of grief. But also: the slow business of writing. And the slow business of poetry itself.

Sep 11, 2023 •

August 2023

85–The sting is part of it now.

I see the heavy grey New York concrete. The sidewalks as chalky and fat as dinosaur bones. I see the movie theater facade, the box office. And I feel…

Aug 20, 2023 •

84–This heartbreaking unknowability.

All the answers to all the questions I’d never thought to ask.

Aug 6, 2023 •

July 2023

83–Like a tiger in the bush.

Some days I experienced my father’s decline with the equanimity of a monk, and other days with the fury of a tiger.

Jul 30, 2023 •

82–In a chair across the room.

Watching him watch the world slip away, I wrote things down.

Jul 23, 2023 •

81–Awake and waiting.

To die in bed – your own bed, or a loaner, but in your space – is a triumph. A shitty triumph, but a triumph nonetheless.

Jul 16, 2023 •

80—Where are we supposed to grieve, anyway?

I wasn’t sure about this poem. But nor was I sure where to take my grief.

Jul 2, 2023 •

June 2023

79–I will miss even this

And yet here they are. Here I am. And here we go. This is how it happened for me.

Jun 18, 2023 •

78–The only home I’d known.

Somehow, when my father died, I also lost our past.

Jun 4, 2023 •

May 2023

77–A man both living and dying.

His tumor is a root system pared back. His mood blows in the breeze, swinging back and forth.

May 28, 2023 •

76–A last Thanksgiving at home.

Driving in, I had the thought: "how many more Thanksgivings will we spend like this, a family together in our family home?"

May 22, 2023 •

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